emotional technology

America Needs Silicon Republicans

The Republicans are like Carbon atoms. You know — a good old molecule, that works well because it’s simple. They’re Pickup Trucks, Apple Pie, and Baseball. One problem with Carbon is that it can be extremely resistant to the flow of electricity — which is a huge part of our modern era. A carbon resistor just gets all red hot and blocks the flow of information — meaning Carbon is often out of the loop.

The GOP is now the party of refusing to accept change in the modern world. Leading the pack of the GOP Presidential Candidates, we have a neurosurgeon who thinks the world is a few thousand years old, and a celebrated businessman who’s earned a lower return on his inherited fortune than stock market investors over the same period.

When this guy is winning, you have to admit you have problems. (Image from Salon)

I was a Republican when I was growing up. I believed free markets were the way to go, and that the government often caused more problems that it solved. I still do.

Like many other people in my generation, I left a group that I saw as increasingly out of touch with reality. We didn’t leave because we stopped believing in limited governments and free markets. We left because we didn’t think the GOP stood for those things any more — it just stood for being angry about the gays, shouting ‘socialism’, and not proposing any real substantive changes to improve people’s lives.

When a bunch of rational people decide to leave a group, the group becomes increasingly irrational. The exodus of so many smart people from the GOP is why I’ve decided to write this article — to call for Silicon Republicans to take over the GOP and bring it into modernity.

Silicon is similar to carbon, but capable of dealing with more exotic structures, and well suited to the flow of electricity.

What’s a Silicon Republican? I’ll start by listing the biggest ways they differ from Carbon Republicans.

Law Enforcement and Police Violence

Carbon Republicans believe respect for law enforcement is the basis of civilization. If you don’t break the law, you don’t need to worry about police violence. Carbon Republicans believe any problems people have with the police would go away if people would just respect the police.

Silicon Republicans believe the biggest threat to our modern civilization is the abuse of government power — especially by law enforcement agencies, both local and federal. The Police exist to serve and protect the public — but all too often they are not held accountable when they overstep their bounds.

Police have made it difficult or impossible to track how often they use violence. They often go unpunished when they do, even if the violence is blatantly illegal.

Silicon Republicans want body cameras on all police officers, and full accountability for police who use violence — as well has harsh punishment for prosecutors that falsify evidence.

LGBT Rights

Carbon Republicans believe that God made traditional marriage to work a certain way, and that being Gay is either a choice some weirdos make, or else a disease or something — but certainly not the way God intends things to be. Carbon Republicans oppose Gay marriage.

Carbon Republicans see a threat to civilization. Silicon Republicans see two dudes getting married. Image from Wikipedia.

Silicon Republicans do not believe the government has any business legislating sexual morality. Many of us are embarrassed to use the word ‘Republican’ because of its strong link to a hateful ideology that says our friends, family members and loved ones who are different are somehow bad for it.

There is no place in modern America for a party that has open antipathy towards homosexuality. If you disagree, you are on the way out. Your time is up. You are not fit to wear the mantle of the party of Lincoln if you will not support the dignity of all Americans.

Terrorism

Carbon Republicans believe terrorist groups like ISIS pose an existential threat to the United States, and that we must do whatever we can to stop them. “Whatever we can” includes spending massive amounts of money, recording and wiretapping all Americans, bombing foreigners, and stepping around pesky laws against torture by using other countries to do that for us.

Carbon Republicans see a traitor who betrayed us to our enemies. Silicon Republicans see a hero who exposed the fact that our intelligence agencies have betrayed us. Photo from Wikipedia.

Silicon Republicans believe the terrorist threat is wildly exaggerated to serve the political ends of government agencies who derive their extraordinary powers from their claim to keep us safe. We believe our government has made us weaker and put us in greater danger, by collecting huge piles of information that it cannot keep safe, and by weakening encryption all over the world.

Entitlements

Carbon Republicans believe Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid are a waste of money, and represent lazy people living off of the government. Sort of. It depends upon who you ask, or when, or whether they are running for election. Generally speaking, the benefits that you are getting, those are fine and fair – part of America, you see — but those others, the different ones, well, they’re just gaming the system! Living high off of our tax dollars.

Silicon Republicans believe in a Guaranteed Basic Income. We currently have a complex system of subsidies, credits and benefits which phase out as a person earns more money — leading to a strong incentive not to work, in some cases.

By replacing Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid, Food stamps, TANF, &c &c with a single check given to all American adults every month, we could both reduce massive amounts of bureaucracy and start moving towards a more realistic image of the world, where we understand that full employment is never what we really wanted.

The difference between Silicon Republicans and Carbon Republicans is simple: Silicon Republicans would prefer to just give homeless people cash vouchers for housing, or food — accepting that yes, some will spend it on drugs and alcohol.

Carbon republicans would rather spend more money to keep shuffling homeless people between jails, hospitals, and the streets. That isn’t just heartless — It’s stupid.

The Bottom Line

Silicon Valley Republicans still believe that individual liberty and private ownership of property are the fairest way to arrange society. Unlike our Carbon cousins, we see see poverty, violent policing and a lack of education as threats to personal liberty as well.

We accept that taxes and entitlements are a part of reality — and we want to make sure they are fair, simple, and that they still incentivize work.

If you are a Silicon Republican — or if you’re a Democrat and you’d prefer to have people you can respectfully disagree with — please share this article.